


A Together War

by cashewdani



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1306645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/pseuds/cashewdani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Cowell assigns them all a video project and he's regretting it before the ink is even dry on the instructions sheet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Together War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [irishmizzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishmizzy/gifts).



> It is irishmizzy's birthday and what better way to celebrate than being like here's some straight up insanity we talked about on miss_bennie's living room floor a million ages ago? HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GIRL, I LOVE YOU.

“While I hate to subject myself to all the complaints I’m probably going to get from you and your parents, my colleagues demand that we do at least one of these a quarter and it’s less of your terrible work that I have to watch and grade, and yes, for those of you who have already shot your hands up, I meant to say watch.” Mr. Cowell starts dropping papers on their desks, walking up and down the aisles. “You are going to make a video, in a group, of one of the books we’ve read so far this year. I use the word read very loosely, understand me, because based on all of your previous assignments, I’m not entirely sure any of you has actually done that.”

“When you say group...” Jesy calls out, and Mr. Cowell somehow rolls his eyes and glares at her both at the same time.

“What do you think group might mean in this case, Miss Nelson?”

“Two people?” she says, meekly and unsure, and Louis and Zayn each glance at the other from the opposite corners of the room they’ve been placed in since two Thursdays ago when they would not stop drawing on one another.

Their teacher informs her, “Two is a partnership,” with a sigh. “Anyone else want to take a stab at it?”

Liam answers, “Three or more?” without being called on, and Mr. Cowell whaps him on top of the head with his copy of the class assignment.

“For talking out of turn, Mr. Payne, but yes, three or more.” Harry and Niall sigh, letting go of holding hands across the aisle. “Yes, very sad, boys, you’ll have to try to find other people willing to work with you.”

Liam looks over at Harry, eyes pleading, at the same time that Niall is annoyingly poking Zayn. “Five is good then, yeah? For a group?” Louis asks, smirking, but all Mr. Cowell does is point at the door. “What about five in this case? Is that an appropriate number of minutes.”

Niall starts laughing, too loud for anywhere, especially Mr. Cowell’s Literature class. “You can join him, Mr. Horan. Hopefully your partners do a better job than you both in listening to directions.”

Jesy says, “I thought we were groups, not partners?” and Mr. Cowell announces aloud to the room, “End of term can honestly, not come soon enough.”

\---

Louis asks, “So did anyone actually read this book?” flipping through his pristine looking copy of _A Separate Peace_.

“I looked at some of it. I think it’s about WWI?” Zayn says, unsure.

“World War II. Internet says so,” Niall answers, hunched over Harry’s laptop. “Also, apparently they play something called blitzball? Maybe we should have read it?”

Liam wants to know, “How do you play?” but Harry just yells at him that there’s some balls out in the shed, they can figure it out on their own.

\---

Almost three hours later, they have a lot of footage of their own version of blitzball and Liam pleading them to get back to work from behind the camera.

“Guys, we have to show this in class! It’s for a grade!” 

“Yeah? So what? We’ll get it done,” Louis says, even though Eleanor is already on her way over to pick him up meaning they’re done for the afternoon.

“There’s only tomorrow left to finish it! And you can’t keep using swears! Mr. Cowell said we’re not allowed to.”

Zayn reminds him, “Mr. Cowell called you a twat yesterday in class.”

“Please can we just pick who is going to be who before Tommo goes to bang his girlfriend for the rest of the night.”

Louis leers and then says, “Oh, have we not picked roles yet? I had no idea, you’ve only been talking about it for FOREVER.”

“Well it’s important!”

“Who decided you were in charge, anyway, Payno? I don’t remember taking a vote on that.”

“If we had to take a vote, Louis, we still wouldn’t have gotten around to it. And anyway, my dad had the camera, so, I’m the director.”

“Well, I brought the army jacket,” Niall says.

“We don’t even need the army jacket, Horan!” Liam shouts at him. “They don’t wear army jackets at school.”

“Okay, well, it’s Hazza’s house,” Zayn adds. “And we’re using all of his mum’s toilet roll for the cast.”

“And my sister’s makeup.”

“We’re not wearing makeup,” Louis tells him.

“It’s authentic.”

“How in any way is that authentic? They didn’t have hair gel in the 1940’s either, Harry.”

“No, like, on a movie set, people wear makeup. So you look good on screen.”

“This is your backyard, Hazza. It’s not a movie set.”

“It’s kind of a movie set,” he responds, sulkily.

“Alright, you be Gene then, if Liam is going to insist on being director. It’s the biggest part.”

“But I wouldn’t shake someone out of a tree!”

Niall says, “You might. Like not to be mean, but you’d shake someone out of a tree and have no idea how it happened.”

“I would not.”

“You’d do it and then say, ‘Oh, was that me? That was 90% gravity.’”

Harry sighs. “Alright, fine, if I’m Gene, then Zayn, you’re Finny.”

“Oi, you want to push me out of the tree more than anyone else? More than Tommo?!”

“Harry, come on,” Niall interjects. “Even Louis is more athletic looking than Malik.” Zayn slaps him across the chest, but Niall just laughs like he doesn’t even feel it. “No one is going to believe him as a charismatic athlete, there’s no way.”

There’s a shrug to Harry’s shoulders as he says, “If I’m Gene, he’s Finny.”

“What if I don’t want to be Finny? I definitely don’t want to jump into that creek you keep calling a lake.”

Liam reminds him, “You have to jump into the lake, it’s a crucial part of the book!”

“A crucial part of this book is how someone dies doing it,” Zayn says.

“He dies later. From his bone marrow,” Niall clarifies.

“Yeah, see, just from his bone marrow, Zayner,” Louis says.

“I hate you all.”

Niall says, “Yeah, bet you’re bummed the girls are doing a genderswap of the story and that meant there were no roles for you.”

“I bet Perrie would have let him in if he wore the wig again,” Louis adds.

“That was one time for Halloween.”

“You made quite the fetching secretary, _Veronica_ ,” Harry says with the look he gives to all the girls and honestly, some of the boys.

“Alright, maybe I do want to jump out of the tree.”

\---

“For the last time, stop trying to do an American accent. I don’t care if Lou told you that Finny would sound like JFK. You do not sound like JFK.”

“Finny would totally sound like JFK, I’m not wrong,” Louis says while lighting a cigarette, only inciting Liam more.

“Stop smoking! Zayn, just do it normal. Once, please, just do it normal.”

“Is anything that Zayn does really normal?” Niall asks. “I’m just saying what everyone is thinking.”

“Zayn, I swear to God, just say the line and get in the water,” Liam says, red in the face and clearly trying to ignore how much he hates all of them. “People don’t drown when they’re only wet up to their ankles.”

He shakes his head, because at half past 2 on Sunday, they’re still arguing about this. “People can drown in an inch of water, that’s a scientific fact,” Zayn says.

“Stupid people might drown in that amount of water. Are you a stupid person, Malik?” Louis asks. “Is that what you’re saying? You’re stupid enough to drown in an inch of water?”

Liam yells, “We’re losing the light!!” and they all turn to look at him in slow motion before bursting out laughing.

“We’re losing the light?” Louis mocks. “You cannot be serious with this right now.”

“You know what, forget it. Just forget it. I’m done.” Liam drops the video camera on the patio table and storms off down Harry’s driveway.

“Whatever, we have a tripod,” Louis calls after him, but Harry gives him a shove.

“Come on, don’t be a dick.”

Louis clearly does not care because he just continues. “But Liam, isn’t this for a grade? WHAT ABOUT THE GRADE?!”

“Alright, seriously, though,” Niall chimes in. “Someone should go talk to him because he’ll totally rat us out to Cowell and he’s the only one who has the editing software.”

“And because it’s nice!” Harry says, indignantly.

Nialls says “I nominate Styles,” and everyone nods their agreement.

\---

By the time Harry has convinced Liam and that no one is going to make fun of him any more and that he won’t tell anyone about how Liam cried a little and punched the mailbox, Niall, his grandfather’s WWII jacket and most of Gemma’s makeup has ended up in the creek.

\---

It took collectively somewhere around thirteen hours, but they have a project.

“I think it’s going to be pretty good,” Harry says. “Like, we really hit our stride at some point.”

“Probably when you let Zayn and I switch places,” Niall says.

Louis adds, “And after we put the shoe polish in your hair for consistency’s sake.”

“Yeah, you look proper like me now,” Zayn says, rolling his eyes.

“Alright, I still want to work on it a little...” Liam starts, but gets interrupted by Niall.

“Put in that 5 Seconds of Summer song I recommended.”

“Not doing that, but yeah, here it is.”

Liam clicks play and Harry’s mumbled voiceover comes in, talking about what SparkNotes said the themes of the book were.

“You sound kind of drunk,” Niall says but Harry just shushes him.

There’s lots of shots of blitzball insanity. Mostly just blitzball insanity and then apparently the cameras had been rolling during the part where Liam had yelled, “Well, at least I’m not a virgin, Louis!” Except he’s tried to edit it and so it just says, “Well at least I’m not a…” followed by a weird frozen shot of Harry mid cartwheel with a football under his shirt that abruptly cuts to him lying on top of Niall as Louis screams back, “Your hand doesn’t count!”

And then there’s Zayn standing at the bottom of a tree and then Niall up in it with Harry, and then him with all of the paper from Harry’s mum’s guest toilet wrapped around his leg.

“I think it’s nice that you had me break the one I got knee surgery on. It feels genuine.”

The boys nod, as they watch him die on screen, followed by a shot of Harry wistfully gazing at the stairs right at the moment Gemma realized all of her Urban Decay was all over her brother’s stupid friends or lying in the mud.

The total play time is 5 minutes and 17 seconds.

“So, I think that was basically perfect,” Louis says and everyone except Liam seems in agreement.

Until Niall points out there was no outtakes section and refuses to sign his name to anything, for a grade or otherwise, until there is one.

\---

The final version they hand in, minus the masturbation jab but plus the outtakes, is over 22 minutes long.

“I’m not subjecting myself to any thing you five put together,” Mr. Cowell says. “You all pass as long as I don’t have to watch it.”

Niall scratches a patch of his hair where the shoe polish still will not wash out. “But don’t you want to see our art?”

“I have been teaching for too many years now. I don’t want to see anything any of you would consider to be art.”


End file.
